Breaking News - UAW and GM Reach Tentative Agreement

[Happy man]

Gone are the good days where employees are paid based on their work ethics.  In my view the unions are what is wrong with this country.  I quit my last job only because it was a union job, my first and last union job.  All the union was good for was for the sorriest employee there to protect them.  It was a joke and those doing a good job where not recognized for their good works. All my other jobs were pay based on employee performance.  Those good employees were also recognized as best workers and paid differently than those that chose to be half-assed workers.  Yes, I was one of those good employees and made sure I was always on time and did my job well.  I was paid handsomely and received promotions over the years, too.  This is the way it should be, IMO.

I have been to the Nissan plant in TN many times that has no union.  Those employees looked quite happy to me.  They have voted against a union many times.  That speaks volumes.  If GM could get rid of the union workers, they would do it in a heartbeat because they know what I have experienced.  The employees are shooting themselves in the foot voting and putting up with the unions.  The bad employees would get filtered out and our trucks would have less issues.

As far as the automation, there are plenty of automation jobs created and available for those who want to learn how to operate and repair them.  That's what I did.

[KARNUT]

Growing up in New Jersey who’s father had a very large construction business. I could tell stories. He got tired of the BS and moved to Texas and started over. Very stress free. I wouldn’t put them all in the same box. But some are fading into corrupt instructions. I’d start with the teacher union.

[SVG]

I worked my whole career in a skilled Union construction trade. We had it a little different in that we could weed out malcontents usually. Might take some time to do it and sometimes your hands were just tied.

 

But it was a somewhat "self-policing" system.

 

I will say that the training we received in this field was second to none. Dozens of courses beyond your initial apprenticeship if you had the desire. Some did, some didn't.

 

A perfect system? No, bit still pretty damn good. At least in my experience.

 

I will say that there is a growing trend of activism in Unions that I have seen. I know that has been a cause since their inception. But it seems, to me at least, that it's becoming much more militant. Fists clenched in the air, etc.

 

I always viewed my particular Union as a professional labor organization. The SJW BS was just noise to me.

 

I will also say that I am against public Unions. With private construction Unions the contractor has a choice between Union or non-Union. "We the people" are given no such choice with public Unions. And we all know how politicians pander for votes by agreeing to virtually every $$ the public Unions request.

 

And the Teacher's Union. Oh where do I start. They revealed themselves during the latest C-19 fiasco as nothing but gutless hacks. Not all, but certainly no small percentage.

 

I could go on but I think I'll stop now (Said in my best Forrest Gump voice).

[Gnacuee]

On 12/13/2021 at 9:40 PM, Happy man said:

Gone are the good days where employees are paid based on their work ethics.  In my view the unions are what is wrong with this country.  I quit my last job only because it was a union job, my first and last union job.  All the union was good for was for the sorriest employee there to protect them.  It was a joke and those doing a good job where not recognized for their good works. All my other jobs were pay based on employee performance.  Those good employees were also recognized as best workers and paid differently than those that chose to be half-assed workers.  Yes, I was one of those good employees and made sure I was always on time and did my job well.  I was paid handsomely and received promotions over the years, too.  This is the way it should be, IMO.

I have been to the Nissan plant in TN many times that has no union.  Those employees looked quite happy to me.  They have voted against a union many times.  That speaks volumes.  If GM could get rid of the union workers, they would do it in a heartbeat because they know what I have experienced.  The employees are shooting themselves in the foot voting and putting up with the unions.  The bad employees would get filtered out and our trucks would have less issues.

As far as the automation, there are plenty of automation jobs created and available for those who want to learn how to operate and repair them.  That's what I did.

Hard to argue with this based on personal experience. Performance-based pay is a straightforward concept that works — you do good work, you get recognized and compensated for it. That direct connection between effort and reward is what actually motivates people to show up and do the job properly.

The protecting the worst employees problem is real and it's what poisons the whole environment. When someone knows they can't be let go regardless of output it changes how they approach the job, and the people around them notice. That resentment builds fast.

The Nissan point is a good one. Voting against unionizing multiple times isn't a small thing — those are workers making an informed choice about what works for them and their plant. Results seem to back it up.

The automation angle is underrated in this conversation too. People treat it like a dead end but there's real skilled work in maintaining and running that equipment and it tends to pay well for people willing to learn it.